An artist’s rendering of the new Brentwood civic center, which received final approval Tuesday. Construction is set to begin next month.
“This has been a very long roller coaster ride,” City Manager Donna Landeros said in an e-mail message. “It is thrilling to see all of the pieces come together better than we ever imagined. The City’s conservative financial policies made it happen! Now let’s get to work and get it built!”
The following memo providing details of the bonding process was sent to the City Council by the city's Finance Dept. Thursday evening:
“The pricing and sale of the 2009 Civic Center Lease Revenue Bonds has been substantially completed. The past few days have been extremely intense as the complexity of our deal along with a rapidly changing financing market caused us more than a few uncomfortable moments. Several large issues were pulled from the market yesterday as some of the planned bond issuances faced increases upwards of 25 basis points (0.25%). This is due to the fact that most bond issues are indexed to the 30 Year Treasury Bond, which after falling for 3 straight months, reversed course and started heading upward.
“We had planned on issuing Build American Bonds (BABS) in order to take advantage of the Federal Subsidy associated with that program. BABS are issued as taxable bonds, with the Federal Government rebating the City 35% of the interest costs. Since BABS investors are typically different than the non-BABS investors, had we not generated enough buyers of our bonds, it would have necessitated our issuing tax-exempt bonds, costing the City approximately 35 basis points (0.35%). By the end of the day we had placed approximately 50% of the bonds, with the knowledge that we had an interested buyer who was likely to pick up a substantial portion of the bonds the following morning.
“This morning began with the news that the 30 year treasury was heading higher again, followed by a phone call from our underwriter who informed us that the buyer wanted to have a phone conference with the City before committing to the deal. We completed the phone conference and within an hour the buyer agreed to purchase $10 million of our bonds. After that, the 30 Year Treasury began to finally weaken, and things fell into place. The rest of the bonds were sold, and we will receive an interest rate of approximately 4.97%. This is the lowest yield the City has ever received on any bond issuance, which is all the more remarkable considering we were unable to insure the bonds due to the collapse of the bond insurers last year. This interest rate is 100 basis points lower than the interest rate we had budgeted. Obviously, that will result in a significant savings for the City. Due to the complexity of the transaction we have not yet been given final numbers and final debt service schedules, but at this point it looks to be a savings of approximately $14.6 million over the life of the issuance.”
I believe the poster's comment was the number of people in town voting in the last mayoral election was 1/3.
Total Brentwood residents: 51,908
Total votes for the mayoral race in the last election: 18,988
% Brentwood residents voting in last mayoral election for all mayoral candidates: 36%
Your point was that voter turnout was 75%
Brentwood registered voters: 24,061
Registered voters voted in mayoral election for both candidates, Wooten and Taylor, and write-ins: 18,988, or 79%
So, you're both right. The difference in the numbers is that only 46% of Brentwood residents are registered to vote.
I think the mayor and two councilmen need to perk up and take note as a controversial issue like a recall election could certainly galvanize people to get out and vote.
The voter's have already spoken, and they do not like the snake oil you and your cronies are selling!
This would certainly help many families keep their homes.
How can we get this started?
That would be more affective than attempting a recall that merely pitts all citizens against each other.
Recalls are a very bad idea, just do not vote them back in. The negative fallout from a recall will be long lasting far after the recall vote no matter which way the vote ends.
That is if the City could break its addiction to taxing its citizens to the maximum extent possible! It's time to put them on a diet and reduce taxes to save local homes and jobs!
Rollback your taxes, Recall BECNEL, BROCKMAN, & TAYLOR